Cable operators use their infrastructure to carry programming content and deliver (sell) this to their subscribers. As part of their agreements with some programmers, the cable operator can also be allowed to insert commercial messages in those network feeds. The operator is typically allowed to do that only at selective times (sometimes called “local avails”, “avails”, “local breaks”, or “breaks”), typically 1-3 minutes per hour. The operator can choose to either sell this time to advertisers (generating extra revenue), or use the time to insert promotional messages for their own products and services.
Cable operators have used the following set up illustrated in FIG. 1 to implement local commercial insertion. The programmer typically distributes their feed via satellite 22 to the various cable operators. The feed can be analog or even digitally encoded. The feed contains signals (in the form of audio tones called “cue tones”) that indicate a local break to the cable operator.
The receiver at the cable operator receives the satellite signal 20 (decompresses it in case of a digital signal), strips off the audio tone, passes through the (analog) feed 24 to the ad inserters 26, and (separately) passes the Insertion (Control) Signal 25 to the ad inserter as well (triggered by the cue tone in the feed). The Traffic & Billing system 28 is responsible for scheduling the commercial messages across the day, it feeds schedule files to ad inserters 26 (typically once a day) with today's insertion schedules.
Separately (and typically at least one day before airing), the commercial messages are loaded into the ad inserters 26 (this can be encoded from tape, or transcoded from a digital format).
The ad inserter 26 as shown in FIG. 2A typically just “passes through” the incoming analog feed, but whenever it gets an “insert” signal, as shown in FIG. 2B, it looks in its schedule to see which message should be inserted, then looks up the message in its internal database 30, and inserts the message into the (analog) feed.
Messages can be any length (as long as they fit in the “avails” that are agreed upon between the programmer and operator), but typical lengths are 30 second, 60 seconds, or 15 seconds.
Cable operators typically have the right to insert local messages on a variety of different networks. In addition to this, typical cable systems consist of multiple ad insertion zones (or ad insertion head ends). So if a cable operator serves an area (say a city) that consists of <n> insertion zones, and wants to insert commercial messages on <m> different networks, a total of <n>×<m> ad inserters are needed. This enables the operator to insert unique (different) commercial messages in each zone/network combination, but at a high cost for equipment.
With the introduction of digital television, cable operators now need to upgrade their insertion infrastructure in order to be able to insert commercial messages into already compressed (digital) feeds. This new system (called DPI, or Digital Program Insertion) is illustrated in FIG. 3. The programmer typically distributes their feed via satellite 22 to the various cable operators. The feed is digitally encoded. The feed contains signals (in the form of special messages, such as the “SCTE 35” messages that are standardized for this purpose by SCTE) that indicate a local break to the cable operator.
The receiver at the cable operator receives the satellite signal and passes it through (including the digital messages) to a new device called a splicer 34. The splicer 34 (among other things) will detect the digital messages in the stream 33, and start an interaction with the digital ad server 36 to get a digitally encoded commercial that is ready for insertion, it will then “splice” that digital commercial into the digital feed 33 during the local avail. The output signal 38 will be a digital signal with a local commercial during the local avail, and is distributed to digital reception devices at the consumers premises (typically a digital set-top box, or a digital TV set).
One of the reasons why digital insertion is more complex, is that insertion (splicing) of a digital commercial in a digital feed is not as straightforward as the simple “switch” that is embedded in the analog ad inserter 26 (see FIG. 2). Instead it needs a fairly sophisticated splicer 34, which is typically external to the ad inserter 26.
Scalability for digital insertion is similar to analog insertion, if a cable operator serves <n> insertion zones, and wants to insert commercial messages on <m> different digital networks, a total of <n>×<m> ad inserters and splicers are needed. Again, this enables the operator to insert unique (different) commercial messages in each zone/network combination.
One of the trends in local cable advertising is to combine all ad insertion zones and capabilities into a single “Interconnect”. An Interconnect typically covers a complete city and may consist of one cable operator, or even a combination of multiple cable operators. It essentially connects all ad inserters so that a client (e.g. an advertiser) can approach the whole market as a single entity, can place single orders, and there is a single T&B (traffic and billing) system driving the insertion schedules. In addition the technical part of the interconnect is typically run from a single command location (Master Control Center). If an Interconnect covers <n> zones, it has the ability to (in any given local avail) air <n> different commercials at the same time in the same program.
There is a large cost involved in converting to digital. Cable operators that “go digital” (in other words: start to distribute their signals to their subscribers in digitally compressed format) obviously face significant investments in infrastructure, digital set-top boxes or other CPE, etc. But on top of these, there is another required investment which is sometimes overlooked, namely the equipment that is needed to insert commercial messages into compressed (digital) program feeds. For a market that contains <n> zones and <m> digitally carried networks, this may add up to <n>×<m> splicers and <n>x<m> digital ad servers, which can be a significant investment.
Therefore, many operators consider “collapsing” their insertion zones to save money (e.g. collapse <n> zones into one (or few) big insertion zones). This reduces investment, but also reduces the unique ability to insert different commercials in different zones (which advertisers can use for reasons of better targeting their messages).